FFI RAPPORT
ISLAMIST INSURGENCIES, DIASPORIC SUPPORT NETWORKS, AND THEIR HOST STATES: The Case of the Algerian GIA in Europe 1993-2000
LIA Brynjar, KJØK Åshild
FFI/RAPPORT-2001/03789
FFISYS/776/161.1
Approved
Kjeller 8 August 2001
Jan Erik Torp
Director of Research
ISLAMIST INSURGENCIES, DIASPORIC SUPPORT NETWORKS, AND THEIR HOST STATES: The Case of the Algerian GIA in Europe 1993-2000
LIA Brynjar, KJØK Åshild
FFI/RAPPORT-2001/03789
FORSVARETS FORSKNINGSINSTITUTT Norwegian Defence Research Establishment P O Box 25, NO-2027 Kjeller, Norway
FORSVARETS FORSKNINGSINSTITUTT (FFI) UNCLASSIFIED
Norwegian Defence Research Establishment _______________________________
P O BOX 25 SECURITY CLASSIFICATION OF THIS PAGE
N0-2027 KJELLER, NORWAY (when data entered)
REPORT DOCUMENTATION PAGE
1) PUBL/REPORT NUMBER 2) SECURITY CLASSIFICATION 3) NUMBER OF
FFI/RAPPORT-2001/03789 UNCLASSIFIED PAGES
1a) PROJECT REFERENCE 2a) DECLASSIFICATION/DOWNGRADING SCHEDULE 59
FFISYS/776/161.1 -
4) TITLE
ISLAMIST INSURGENCIES, DIASPORIC SUPPORT NETWORKS, AND THEIR HOST STATES: The Case of the Algerian GIA in Europe 1993-2000
5) NAMES OF AUTHOR(S) IN FULL (surname first)
LIA Brynjar, KJØK Åshild
6) DISTRIBUTION STATEMENT
Approved for public release. Distribution unlimited. (Offentlig tilgjengelig)
7) INDEXING TERMS
IN ENGLISH: IN NORWEGIAN:
a) Security policy a) Sikkerhetspolitikk
b) Terrorism b) Terrorisme
c) Asymmetric warfare c) Asymmetrisk krigføring
d) Islamism d) Islamisme
e) European security e) Europeisk sikkerhet
THESAURUS REFERENCE:
8) ABSTRACT
Globalisation and transnational migration have increased the impact of insurgencies overseas on European security. The presence of a significant Muslim diaspora in Europe, and the emergence of Islamist support networks in Europe for insurgencies in North Africa, the Middle East and Asia pose a number of policy dilemmas for Western governments.
This report offers an empirical exploration of the insurgent-support network of the Algerian Islamist insurgents, with a focus on the Algerian Armed Islamic Group (GIA). A theoretical framework for understanding insurgent strategies vis- à-vis the sanctuary or host state is presented, emphasising the difficult trade-off between maximising the benefits of sanctuary and reducing friction with the host states. The case study of the Algerian GIA’s sanctuary strategies offers particular insight into an insurgent movement’s decision to turn to violence against the sanctuary state. It appears that a specific set of coincidental factors contributed to this decision. They included a declining value of the sanctuary due to police repression, a critical stage in the domestic insurgency, and a finally, the insurgent movement’s perception that the disruption of sanctuary state – host state relations was critical to the outcome of the insurgency. In general, this study underlines the value of the sanctuary model for understanding the phenomenon of international terrorism by overseas insurgent movements.
9) DATE AUTHORIZED BY POSITION
This page only
8 August 2001 Jan Erik Torp Director of Research
ISBN-82-464-535-7 UNCLASSIFIED
SECURITY CLASSIFICATION OF THIS PAGE (when data entered)
CONTENTS
Page
1 INTRODUCTION 7
1.1 Radical Islamists as Rational Insurgents? 8
1.2 A Note on Sources 9
2 THE MUSLIM DIASPORA IN EUROPE 10
2.1 The Emergence of Islamist Organisations in the Diaspora 12 2.2 A European ‘Dar al-Islam’? Islamist Perceptions of the Muslim Diaspora 14 2.3 Dissidents and Insurgents in Host State - Diaspora Relations 15 2.4 The Algerian Islamists in France in the Early 1990s 19 2.5 The Origin and Development of the Armed Islamic Group (GIA) in Algeria 21
3 INSURGENTS AND SANCTUARIES: A FRAMEWORK 22
4 THE GIA’S INSURGENCY-SUPPORT ACTIVITIES IN EUROPE 25
4.1 Fundraising 26
4.2 Gunrunning 28
4.3 Recruitment and Training 29
4.4 Providing Shelter 32
4.5 Public Relations and Propaganda 32
4.6 Frictions with Sanctuary State 34
5 EXPLAINING THE SHIFT TO VIOLENCE 34
5.1 Operations in Belgium 35
5.2 Operations in France (1994-95) 36
5.2.1 GIA Cells in Vaulx-en-Velin, Lille and Chasse-sur-Rhone. 38
5.3 Return to Restraint after 1995 40
5.3.1 The massive police raid on the GIA support network in May 1998 41 5.4 Explaining the GIA’s Shift in Sanctuary Strategy 43
5.4.1 Declining Utility of Sanctuary 43
5.4.2 A Turning Point on the Battle Ground 44
5.4.3 Sanctuary State-Enemy State Relations as a Strategic Obstacle 45 5.4.4 Backlash and Return to Restraint, and Transfer 45 5.5 Alternative Interpretation: The GIA as a vehicle for the Algerian regime 46
6 CONCLUSION 47
REFERENCES 49
Distribution list 55
ISLAMIST INSURGENCIES, DIASPORIC SUPPORT NETWORKS, AND THEIR HOST STATES: The Case of the Algerian GIA in Europe 1993-2000
1 INTRODUCTION
Popular themes in current international relations studies are the growing importance of transnationalism, the empowerment of non-state actors, and the alleged decline — or at least transformation — of the state.∗1 In conflict studies, more attention has been devoted to diasporas as a third force in what was previously mostly a two-level game between two contending states or a state and an insurgent group.2 Increased transnational migration, improved communications, and the new ‘power of identity’3 have increased the impact of violent conflicts overseas on domestic European politics. One of the most immediate concerns is centred on what we may term insurgency support activities or support networks among immigrants and diaspora communities. Extensive fundraising, arms smuggling and recruitment efforts for one of the contending parties in a violent conflict overseas pose a number of
problems for host states, home states as well as the diaspora community itself. Such activities impact not only on host state - home state relations, but they also create significant strains on host state - diaspora relations, complicate asylum and integration policies and invite undesired foreign intelligence operations directed towards activists in the diaspora communities.
Criminal violence associated with support networks such as criminal fund-raising and
intimidation jeopardizes the general status and safety of immigrants. On the other hand, heavy- handed suppression of all manifestations of low-profile pro-insurgency activity on behalf of a popular rebel movement will easily alienate significant segments of the diaspora from the host state.
This study does not aim at providing a comprehensive discussion of the role of insurgency support activities in the complicated and triangular relationship between homeland - host state- diaspora community. Instead, we offer a largely empirical study of support activities in Europe for overseas Islamist insurgencies, with a specific focus on the political and strategic
considerations underlying these support efforts from the perspective of radical Islamist insurgent movements. This fills an important gap not only in the general political violence literature, but also in our knowledge of modern political Islamism. Existing studies on radical Islamism have tended to focus either on its ideological aspects or on the domestic
∗ We are indebted to valuable comments from participants at the panel on Regional Security Issues: The Middle East at the International Studies Association Annual Conference in Chicago 20-24 February 2001 where an early draft of this report was presented, in particular Dr David Sorenson from the US Air War College, who chaired our panel. We also wish to thank Lars Haugom and Thomas Hegghammar for their comments and constructive criticism.
1 See for example Strange (1996), Van Creveld (1991) and Sheffer (1995).
2 See for example Shain & Wittes (2001).
3 Manuell Castells’ phrase in his the second volume of his famous The Information Age. See Castells (1997).
confrontation with the state.4 Scholars have largely ignored the topic of radical Islamist support networks.5
1.1 Radical Islamists as Rational Insurgents?
Political Islamism can be defined as a political ideology and organised movements (espousing the ideology of Islamism), whose common denominator is the call for an Islamic state
governed according to the principles of al-Shari‘ah, the non-codified Islamic law, emanating from the Koran and the Traditions of the Prophet Muhammad.6 In this study we make a loose distinction between radical and mainstream Islamism where radical Islamism is characterised by its explicit willingness to employ violence for political ends.
In terrorism studies, Islamist radicals are increasingly being described as the arch type of the so-called “new terrorism”.7 They are often portrayed as belonging to a global network of semi - autonomous groups acting in loose co-operation, carrying out acts of violence against the U.S.
and other ‘enemies of Islam’. They are considered more violent-prone than secular terrorists, since the very legitimisation for violence emanates from religious fatwas often issued by blind and fanatic shaykhs, not from a wider constituency of supporters. Radical Islamists, it is alleged, are fanatical, irreconcilable and inherently violent. Their acts defy the logic of rational cost-benefits calculations. Attempts at identifying any rationality or political-strategic
considerations behind their actions, beyond furthering the Islamic revolution, appear futile. For example, it has been argued, “rational actor theory cannot but misinterpret Islamic
fundamentalism because rational actor assumptions and the rationalist worldview of which they are an expression, exclude fundamentalists’ own conceptions of human nature and action”.8 Not surprisingly, political scientists descend rarely into this messy world of hearsay, propaganda and irrationality.
In this study, we argue against the notion of an irrational Islamist radicalism, which has little in common with other rebel and insurgent movements, and which cannot be understood by more general theories on insurgencies. In order to make a case against the uniqueness of Islamist insurgencies we will use the example of the Algerian Armed Islamic Group (‘Groupe Islamique Armée’ - GIA), often portrayed as the most irrational, fanatic and brutal of all Islamist insurgent organisations. (Its use of violence has been described as “random butchery”,
“deadly madness”, “senseless” and “beyond comprehension”9.) However, we will show how the GIA’s activities and operations in Europe actually conform to more general theories of
4 See for example Shahin (1997), Esposito (1997), Willis (1996), Maddy-Weitzman & Inbar (1996), Burgat &
Dowell (1993); Kepel (1995); and Ayubi (1991). Two examples are the journalistic accounts offered by Labévière (2000) and Sfeir (1997).
5 As far as we can ascertain there exist only a few journalistic accounts. Three examples of this genre are Bodansky (1999), Reeve (1999) and Labèviére (2000), but they offer little to the academic understanding of the subject of Islamist support networks. Terrorism studies have often been journalistic in style and “not research- based in any rigorous sense”. Especially with regard to international terrorism theoretical works are nearly absent.
For a review of the state of the art of the literature on causes of terrorism, see Lia & Skjølberg (2000). The quotation is from Schmid & Jongman (1988), p. 179.
6 For works on political Islamism, see footnote 4.
7 See Bodansky (1999), Hoffman (1998), Laqueur (1998) and Lesser et al (1999).
8 Euben (1995), p. 157.
9 Kalyvas (1999), p. 243, referring to Time 6 October 1997); L’Humanité 15 September 1998; Ganley (1997); and Smith (1998).
insurgent strategies vis-à-vis support networks in exile (external sanctuaries) and relations with host countries (sanctuary state). Far from lashing out blindly in all directions against perceived
‘enemies of Islam’, the GIA has adopted a coherent, albeit unsuccessful strategy during the 1990s in order to maximise the advantages of its relative freedom of action in Europe – for the benefit of the domestic insurgency in Algeria. We argue that radical Islamist movements by and large conceptualise Europe within an ‘enemy territory’ – ‘sanctuary’ dichotomy, in which European host countries, though often portrayed as “enemies” and “the mother of all evil” in Islamist ideological thinking, serve mainly as ‘sanctuaries’, due to practical considerations and tactical imperatives.10 However, in 1995 the GIA attributed strategic importance to armed operations in France. Elsewhere, armed operations were rare; when they did occur, they were primarily a tactical instrument used in response to police crackdowns; for example, shots were fired to escape detainment, or threats of violence were issued to raise the costs of host
countries’ extradition of GIA-operatives to less friendly countries. It seems clear, therefore, that European countries have become strategic targets for armed operations by radical Islamists only under very specific circumstances. This happened when three factors coincided, namely (i) the utility of the European sanctuary for the rebels was declining, (ii) the rebels experienced a critical phase or turning point in the Algerian civil war, and finally, (iii) the disruption of outside assistance from the sanctuary state to the enemy regime was deemed critical and seemed possible. The costs of such operations were deemed too high to be sustained, and have therefore only been actively pursued in shorter periods. In general, the patterns of the GIA in- exile activities can therefore be interpreted using a rational actor model of insurgent sanctuary strategies.11
1.2 A Note on Sources
There are good reasons to take a fresh look at Algerian radical Islamism and its support networks in the diaspora. Recent studies have provided new insights into the dynamics and logic guiding the use of violence by radical Islamists in Algeria proper12. Moreover, the extensive police operations against radical Islamists in Europe, as well as court cases already finished or still underway, have provided much new, open source information on the activities of these movements. Both factors enable us to go beyond speculation and hearsay, in order to make an analysis of the role of European-based support-networks, which is a truly neglected aspect of Islamist insurgencies in the post-Cold War World. It should be emphasised that much of the information upon which the empirical case study is based originates from European police sources via press reports. Police sources have on several occasions turned out to be biased.13 Whenever possible, information from police sources has thus been compared with other available sources, such as testimonies during trials by former and present GIA-members, as well as GIA communiqués. The latter have also been useful in discerning shifts in GIA’s European strategies.
10 The quotation is from GIA Communique No.44 dated 21 May 1996.
11 Obviously, the rational actor perspective does not exclude the use of massive and brutal violence, but predicates that cost-benefit calculations , not ideological/religious imperatives, are the basis for the use of violence.
12 See in particular Kalyvas (1999) and Bedjaoui (1999).
13 For instance, in July 2000, a French judge ruled that the police had fabricated proof against Moussa Kraouche, the leader of the Algerian Brotherhood (FAF) in France, trying to make it look as if he was a GIA-member. See
“French judge rules police framed Algerian militant,” Reuters 6 July 2000.
This study is divided into two main parts. The first part is devoted to a more general discussion of the new Muslim diaspora in Europe, the rise of Islamist movements and insurgency support activities as a contentious issue in host state - diaspora relations. The second part is mainly a case study of the Algerian Armed Islamic Group (GIA). We identify the scope of its activities and analyse the shifts in its strategies from its emergence as one of the major Algerian
insurgent groups between 1993 and 2000.
2 THE MUSLIM DIASPORA IN EUROPE
The presence of a considerable Muslim population in Western European countries — ca 11,5 mill in the EEC countries in 199514 — is mainly a consequence of recent voluntary
immigration of workers, and to a lesser extent, influx of refugees from civil wars and political conflicts coming from the Middle East, North Africa or South Asia.15 Their administrative status has varied greatly from illegal immigrants, non-citizen guest workers (in Germany) to citizens (mostly in France and Britain). Until the late 1980s, the Muslim diaspora by and large kept a low profile. However, through upward social mobility, and partly ‘brain drain’ from Third World Muslim countries, a Muslim intelligentsia has slowly emerged in Europe, calling for a larger degree of recognition of the Muslim presence.
Muslims in the EEC countries in 1991(estimates)
State Total population Muslim population (estimates only)
% Muslims
France 56,9 mill 4 mill 7,0
Belgium 10,0 mill 450,000 4,5
Germany 79,5 mill 2,5 mill 3,1
The Netherlands 33,6 mill 450,000 3,0
Greece 10,2 mill 300,000 2,9
United Kingdom 57,7 mill 1,5 mill 2,6
Luxembourg 380,000 10,000 2,6
Denmark 5,1 mill 100,000 1,9
Austria 7,8 mill 120,000 1,5
Sweden 8,6 mill 100,000 1,2
Norway 4,3 mill 50,000 1,2
Spain 38,4 mill 350,000 0,9
Italy 58 mill 400,000 0,7
Ireland 3,5 mill 20,000 0,6
Portugal 10,5 mill 20,000 0,2
Total 365,9 mill 10,370,000 2,8
Table 2.1 Muslims in EEC countries in 1991.16
During the 1980s and early 1990s a multifaceted crisis affected the Muslim diaspora in Europe in general and in France in particular, who hosted the largest Muslim diaspora in Europe of nearly 4 million, representing 7 % of the population. The crisis involved unemployment, xenophobia, disintegration of family units, and a wider identity crisis The latter issue of identity was accentuated by specific issues like the Rushdie affair, the dispute over the right to
14 Shadid & Van Koningsveld (1996a), p.14.
15 Roy (2000).
16 M Ali Kettani in Shadid & Van Koningsveld (1996a), p.15. Other and somewhat lower estimates are given in Vertovec & Peach (1997), pp.14-16.
wear a veil in French schools, repercussions of the Gulf war, the rise of the Islamic Salvation Front (FIS) in Algeria, cut short by the military coup in January 1992 and the ensuing Algerian civil war, and finally, the European involvement in the war on the Balkans. In different ways, these events contributed to a heightened consciousness of Muslim identity in the diaspora in Europe. Islam has become one of the main elements in the identity formation of immigrant communities from Muslim countries, with the mosque being the diaspora’s perhaps most important institution.17
The evolution of Muslim identity in the European Muslim diaspora is outside the scope of this study. Suffice to note that the Muslim diaspora, although extremely multifaceted and
heterogeneous, has acquired certain cultural and identity traits of its own that are at odds with both the official Islam of their home countries and the political Islamism of the opposition. Yet Muslim immigrants are still a diaspora, far from assimilated into the mainstream secular culture and identity of the European host countries. The renowned French scholar on Islamism, Olivier Roy, has succinctly noted
“a process of acculturation is underway, even if it does not lead to integration, but to other patterns of differences. The beur (slang for Arab) culture of the suburbs of France has nothing to do with Islam or even with Arab culture: the slang (verlan) is French, the diet and the clothing are American (Mc Donald’s and baseball caps), the music is Western (rap, ‘hip-hop’).”18
Apart from the acculturation process, there are important political forces affecting the Muslim diaspora in Europe. Both home countries and host states have to varying degrees perceived the Muslim diaspora as a potential threat and have strived to keep it under control. In particular, the Islamic associations in the diaspora in Europe, although originally formed in response to local demands, “have increasingly become targets of the homeland state authorities’ efforts at gaining more control over the diaspora in Europe.”19 Saudi Arabia has won considerable influence in Muslim diasporas worldwide through its massive sponsorship of mosques, Islamic schools, Islamic missionary organisations, and Islamic news media and has used this leverage to silence criticism of the Saudi Monarchy. With the growth of a Turkish diaspora in Europe, the Turkish state decided to compete with the independent Islamic associations in both Germany and France. Turkey has made concerted efforts to systematically organise religious life of the Turkish diaspora in Germany through the formation of ‘The Religious Authority Turkish-Islamic Associations’ (DITIB), among other bodies.20 Enhanced control over the Turkish diaspora was achieved through a variety of measures, including the appointment of imams, the organisation of the Muslim pilgrimage to Mecca and Medina (hajj), and the integration of religious education with the teaching of the mother tongue, which was
administered by the Turkish state. Turkey’s practice of posting imams in France, Germany as well as in other European countries reflected the foreign policy objective of “oppos[ing]
political Islam which is against Turkey’s interests” as one DITIB official put it.21 “The
17 Kepel (1997), pp.150ff, and Mossaad (1995), pp.201ff.
18 See Roy (2000). See also Nielsen (1999) and Leveau in (Vertovec & Peach (1997).
19 Pedersen (1999), pp.24ff.
20 Pedersen (1999), p.25
21 Pedersen’s interview with DITIB officials in May 1990, cited in Pedersen (1999), p.33.
politicising Islamic groups constitute a potential political problem that needs to be taken very seriously”.22 Similarly, maintaining some degree of control over the Muslim diaspora in Europe, especially with regard to politico-religious influences in the diaspora through appointments of imams, control of diaspora associations and political surveillance have
remained an important policy objective for the Moroccan, Tunisian and Algerian governments.
2.1 The Emergence of Islamist Organisations in the Diaspora
Parallel to the reassertion of Muslim identity among immigrants in Europe from the late 1980s, there has been a remarkable proliferation of associations, espousing to Islamist ideologies a varying degree. The French sociologist Gilles Kepel has described the role of these new associative structures partly as a spontaneous response of communal self-help and partly as a response to a perceived need for community spokesmen for a previously marginalized, but increasingly assertive Muslim diaspora. From their establishment, the new Islamist
associations have served “as fonction tribunicienne, a ‘mouthpiece function’, to express the frustration, hopes and demands of marginalized youth.”23 Another reason for the growing popularity of Islamism lay in the dilemma that the multitude of cultures in which Islam was embedded (in the immigrants’ homelands) divided rather than united Muslims in the diaspora.
The so-called salafist trend in the Islamist movement seemed to offer one way out of this dilemma. The salafists stressed the return to an authentic Islam (of the forefathers, salafiyyun), i e an Islam divested from local traditions and superstitions. They sought to create non-ethnic mosques and communities. To bypass cultural divisions, brought by pristine cultures, the salafists tended to advocate either the use of the host country’s language or standard classical Arabic. This approach represented an attempt to recreate an Islamic community of believers in Europe rather tha n assimilate or adopt a more liberal Islam.
A third factor behind the rise of Islamism as a significant ideology in the Muslim diaspora was the general strengthening of links between the diaspora and the home countries, including their domestic Islamist opposition movements. The relatively embryonic nature of the Muslim diaspora in Western Europe meant that for many immigrants, the decision to settle down in Europe was not final, and they still nurtured the idea of returning as soon as economic, social and/or political conditions would permit. The increased influx of students and political refugees to Europe provided the manpower to organize and provide leadership in the Islamist associations. Improved communication (air travel, phone and fax links, satellite television, and computer networks) now links the Muslim diaspora communities in Europe to their home countries as well as to each other. The Muslim émigré communities in Europe in general, and the Islamist associations in particular, have thus acquired a marked transnational character in their organisation and outlook.
The activism of the new Islamist associations has not been predominantly illegal, although the wide media coverage, especially in France, of Islamist involvement in crimes, terrorist
activities and illegal trade in drugs and arms may have conveyed such an image. Organised illegal activities have usually been associated with a wide range of support activities for the insurgency in Algeria, as we shall see below. On some occasions, however, Islamist groups in
22 Ibid.
23 Kepel (1997), p.154.
France have been implicated in vigilante activities in an attempt to reduce drug abuse and social problems associated with it.24
The Islamists constitute clearly a small minority among European Muslims. Olivier Roy has identified two real trends among European Muslims: “firstly, a vocal fundamentalist school of thought, trying to build a reconstructed community […] and secondly, the silent majority of believers, who found their way on the basis of compromises, adaptation, and makeshift theology.”25 Another scholar, Felice Dassetto, has suggested that
The bulk of Muslims in Europe — perhaps 60 per cent — fall into the bulk of
‘undeclared believer’ categories of ‘agnostic’, ‘silent indifferent’ or ‘culturalist
Muslim’, that is people who may be proud to call themselves ‘Muslims’ but who do not engage in much in terms of religious activity. Perhaps 20 per cent […] are ‘individual pietist’ by way of their religiosity […] not engaging in collective mobilising activities.
The remaining 20 per cent is comprised of the formal ‘ritualists’, ‘missionaries’,
‘mystics’ and ‘militants’ who are the most active in promoting and proselytising Islam.26
The size of the Islamist component of the Muslim diaspora is hard to assess, although it has undoubtedly increased considerably since the late 1980s.27 The practice of Islam among Muslims in the diaspora varies greatly. Surveys in France from the mid-1990s indicated that merely some 15% regularly observe basic Muslim rituals such as the ‘five pillars’ of Islam, and only slightly more than 10% of this minority group of observant Muslims consider themselves supporters of political Islamism.28 This relatively small minority of some 50,000 Muslims in France, however, have been very active and vocal, although it is divided into different and sometimes competing networks of mosques, associations, institutions, often supported by a web of financial and economic ties to external and internal sponsors.29 In Germany, which has a significant Muslim diaspora, there is also a sizeable Algerian émigré community.30 In late 1995, German police sources estimated the number of FIS members to be between 30 and 50 and put the number of sympathisers at 2,000.31 A Dutch study, analysing
24 For example, in March 1990, during the first month of Ramadan after the Gulf War, young people in Nanterre identifying themselves with the cause of Islam wrecked a café which had been the centre of the drugs trade in the area. It was the first ‘anti-drugs action’ associated with Islamism and others followed, such as the so-called
‘Biscottes project’ in the south of Lille. In 1991, also in Nanterre, a drug dealer was stabbed by a anti-drug vigilante squad, for which the ‘New Muslim Youth’ were suspected. In June 1993 the discovery of weapons alongside pro-FIS leaflets in premises belonging to an association of ‘New Muslim Youth’ in Nanterre also suggested that vigilante actions had not ceased. The leader of the Nanterre association publicly sympatized with the vigilantes: “We want to defend the purity and public morality against drug traffickers”. Cited in Kepel 1997, p.214. See also Ibid, p.213-4, and note 13, p.262. Vigilante action has become one of the hallmarks of several Islamist groups, in particular the South African-based ‘People Against Drugs and Gangsterism’ (PADAG).
25 Roy (2000).
26 Cited in Vertovec & Peach (1997), pp.37-38.
27 Kepel (1997), p.153ff and 211ff.
28 Sfeir (1997), p.15.
29 Sfeir (1997), p.15.
30 One estimate puts the number of Algerian Muslims in Germany at 6,700 in 1990. Others have estimated the Algerian diaspora to be between 20-30,000. See Vertovec & Peach (1997), p.17 and police estimates cited in
“Fundamentalist leader ‘will not become Algerian Khomeini’,” Agence France Presse 10 January 1995, and in Reuters 20 October 1995.
31 Reuters 20 October 1995.
the impact of radical Islam on political attitudes of first generation Moroccan Muslims in the Netherlands, found that a relatively large segment of the group “sympathizes with the FIS”
(35% for ‘migrant workers’ and 50% of ‘teachers’) while only ca 20 % (of both groups)
“opposes FIS”.32 Migrant workers were clearly less outspoken in their sympathy for the Islamist opposition in Algeria than ‘teachers’ (selected as representatives for the educated middle class). Kemper observed that nearly half of migrant workers in his sample “do [..] not want to be involved in controversial matters.”33
2.2 A European ‘Dar al-Islam’? Islamist Perceptions of the Muslim Diaspora According to classical Muslim teaching, the Islamic worldview is that of a binary world divided between Dar al-Islam (‘Land of Islam’) where the Islamic community has been established and Islam is practiced, and Dar al-Harb (‘The Land of War’) or Dar al-Kufr (‘The Land of Unbelief’) where Muslims have to fight to establish their community of believers.
This dichotomy is not absolute, however. Classical traditions of Islamic Law also spoke of
‘Land of Negotiated Peace’ (Dar al-Sulh/Dar al-‘Ahd), a situation where Muslims are not in conflict with the ‘ungodly’ and not openly hostile to the state and Dar al-Aman (‘Land of Safety’) where Muslims were musta’minun, i e protégés enjoying the protection of the state concerned. The classical dichotomy of Islam and Unbelief is admittedly anachronistic, given the new reality of a large Muslim diaspora in the Western world, but it has not been replaced by a new dogma. According to one study, there is “great confusion among many contemporary [Islamic] scholars […] concerning the normative ideas of Islam about the position of Muslims living as a minority in a non-Muslim society or state.”34
In France, Muslim preachers and activists have in practice considered Europe as a ‘Land of Negotiated Peace’, a land of refuge.35 Early Muslim preachers and activists rarely considered the possibility of a permanent Islamic community and presence in the infidel Western Europe.
Islamist activists tended to focus narrowly on the recruitment of members to further the
struggle for an Islamic state in their homelands, while traditional Muslim preachers and imams, often emissaries dispatched and paid by the home states, taught political quietism to their congregations, in order not to endanger the status of Muslim immigrant guest workers in Europe and avoid upsetting their state sponsors.
With the advent of a re-islamization of the Muslim diaspora in Western Europe, and the rise of independent Islamist associations, the perception of Europe has undergone a fundamental change.36 From the late 1980s, a more recent generation of Muslim activists and Islamist ideologues have come to acknowledge the fact of Islam in and even of Europe. France, one of the main host countries of the Muslim diaspora in Europe, was now increasingly
conceptualised as a piece of ‘Land of Islam’, as the leading intellectual of the Tunisian Islamist movement Rashid al-Ghannushi stated at the congress of the Union of Islamic Organisations
32 Kemper in Shadid & Van Koningsveld (1996a), p.197.
33 Kemper in Shadid & Van Koningsveld (1996a), p.197.
34 For an analysis of the Islamic normative discussions on loyalty to a non-Muslim government, see Shadid & Van Koningsveld (1996a), pp.84ff
35 Kepel (1997), p.151, and 195ff.
36 Kepel (1997), p.152.
in France (UIOF) in 1990.37 The objective was now extended to include the re-islamization of the population of Muslim origin in France, rather than an exclusive focus on jihad in the home countries. The Islamist movement had for the first time recognised the permanence of the Muslim presence in France, a fact that had previously been ignored. Their interest in France and its Muslim diaspora consequently increased, and their focus shifted somewhat towards the organisation of Islamist networks and infrastructure in France. The shift towards building a virtual or non-territorial ‘Islamic state’ in the diaspora has raised the issue of the communal status of Muslims in Europe. This new assertiveness has been met with different responses from European states, with the British government being more compliant with diaspora demands for Muslim communal institutions and recognitions as a minority group, while France, due to the republican character of the state, has been extremely reluctant to institutionalise Islamic communalism and recognize Islamic institutions as genuine interlocutors and spokesmen for the Muslim community.
2.3 Dissidents and Insurgents in Host State - Diaspora Relations
As the assertion of Muslim and communal identity became an issue in late 1980s, a number of specific issues contributed to a markedly tenser relationship between organised political Islamism and European host states. While a comprehensive discussion of host state - diaspora relations is outside the scope of this study, we will briefly exemplify how the issue of political émigré dissidents and insurgents has impinged on host state - diaspora and host state - home state relations.
A prime example of how the presence of émigré dissidents in the European diaspora would interfere with political-economic state-state relations between host state and homeland, was the al-Mas‘ari Affair in Britain in the mid-1990s, which threatened to unravel British- Saudi relations. The advent of the information revolution confronted the authorities of the immigrants’ home countries with unprecedented challenges since the new technology offered novel opportunities for oppositional politics from out-of-country bases. It dramatically
enhanced the importance of the European ‘sanctuary’ for political dissidents and insurgent movements.
The al-Mas‘ari affair dated back to a group of Saudi dissidents who in the early 1990s had issued a list of demands to King Fahd for reforms in both internal and foreign policy, hoping to apply some pressure on the authoritarian monarchy and rally domestic support behind their demands. The Saudi government cracked down on the activists, however, and those who managed to escape imprisonment, gathered in exile where they formed the Committee for the Defence of Legitimate Rights (CDLR) in May 1993. Their most prominent spokesman
Muhammad al-Mas‘ari set up an office in London from which he rapidly emerged as a major political figure through networking and a skilful exploitation of available information
technology. His office faxed some 800 copies per week of a newsletter to the Kingdom where it was distributed widely. An email service and Internet home page widened his audience.38 Al- Mas‘ari’s activism became a serious nuisance to the Saudi government and undercut its strict
37 The UIOF was in 1990 the main Islamist organization in France, who claimed to speak on behalf of more than 207 local associations in 1994. Kepel (1997), pp.152, 195.
38 Rathmell et al (1997).
censorship regime on domestic politics, a policy the Saudi monarchy has also pursued through securing Saudi ownership of major pan-Arabic newspapers and TV channels. By 1995-6, the growing influence of the al-Mas‘ari group prompted the Saudi government to threaten to scale down economic-military co-operation between the United Kingdom and Saudi Arabia, unless al-Mas‘ari was silenced. The British government, after being unsuccessful in its attempts to deport him, proceeded to rewrite its immigration laws specifically so that future cyber-activists of al-Mas‘ari’s proportions can be deported.39
There can be little doubt that the political freedom offered in Western democracies is a key factor behind the Islamists’ utilisation of Europe as a support base for political opposition and/or armed insurgencies in the Middle East.40 A whole continuum of support activities for opposition and insurgent movements in the home countries can be identified, ranging from legal activities in support of human rights and imprisoned political dissidents to flagrantly illegal acts such as bank robberies, weapons smuggling and drug trafficking to finance insurgencies overseas. Recently passed national and international legislation reflects the growing concern over support activities for armed insurgencies overseas.41 An unclassified report by the Canadian Intelligence Security Service,42 one of the very few Western
intelligence services to openly talk about the issue of immigrants and illegal support activities for insurgencies overseas, identified the following range of illegal support activities on
Canadian territory43:
“Many of the world's terrorist groups have a presence in Canada, where they engage in a variety of activities in support of terrorism, including logistical support for offshore terrorism through efforts to obtain weapons and equipment to be shipped abroad, such as electrical detonators for explosives, or remote-control devices that can be adapted for use in the remote detonation of bombs […]; attempts to establish an operational support base in Canada, to enable groups to send in hit teams for attacks on targets of opportunity; fundraising, advocacy, propaganda. […]; intimidation and manipulation of
39 Andrew Rathmell et al (1997).
40 A web-based mouthpiece for the radical Islamists noted for example that: “The consecutive dictatorship regimes and the degrading living conditions have driven many Muslims out of their homes temporarily to places less hostile towards their religion […]. The Western countries, a primary contributor to this migration, ironically accepted most of those Muslim immigrants […]. The West […] is a place of great opportunities for Muslims to practice Da‘wah and claim more adherents to the universal Deen of Allah.”(Da’wah – ‘proselytising’; Deen of Allah – ‘God’s Religion’). See Abdul Walid al-Hawami & Ibrahim Abu Khalid in “Da’wah -Getting it Right”, Nida’ ul-Islam, No. 26, April-May 1999, http://www.islam.org.au.
41 For example, the U.S. President’s Executive Order of January 1995, which orders the seizure of assets belonging to ‘terrorist groups’, backed up by another anti-terrorist legislation in 1996 similarly ordering the freezing of the assets of some 30 groups. Internationally, a United Nations convention has been drafted, which will require the signatory states to pass domestic legislation making it illegal to raise funds for organizations deemed ‘terrorist groups’.
42 Canadian Intelligence Security Service, Terrorism 2000/2001, dated 18 December 1999, cited in Emerson (2000).
43 In a testimony dated 24 January 1998 delivered to the Special Committee of the US Senate on Security and Intelligence, Ward Elock, Director of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, noted that “[w]ith perhaps the singular exception of the United States, there are more international terrorist groups active here in than in any country in the world. The Counter-Terrorism Branch is currently investigating over 50 organizational targets and 350 individual terrorist targets […] By way of example, the following terrorist groups acting on behalf have been and are active in Canada: Hezbollah and other Shiite Islamic terrorist organizations; several Sunni Islamic Extremist groups, including Hamas, with ties to Egypt, Libya, Algeria, Lebanon and Iran; the Provisional IRA;
the Tamil Tigers; the Kurdistan Worker’s Party (PKK); and all of the world’s major Sikh terrorist groups.” Cited in Emerson (2000).
Canadian citizens in émigré communities to support activities for homeland issues;[…]
a safe haven for terrorists; [and] use of Canada as a base to arrange and direct terrorist activities in other countries.”
Illegal recruitment, fund-raising often through intimidation or criminal activities, and arms smuggling in and from Europe, Canada and the United States by Islamist activists, acting on behalf armed insurgent movements in the Muslim world have become major problems in host state-diaspora relations, especially during the 1990s. This was not only due to the increasing scale of these activities, but also because it highlighted and accentuated sensitive issues such as the very legitimacy of an armed uprising against authoritarian rule and/or oppressive foreign occupation, and the perceived Western involvement in legitimising and even supporting economically and militarily authoritarian regimes, where Muslims in general and Islamist movements in particular are victimized. It seems fair to say that a considerable segment of the Muslim diaspora has tended to sympathize with quite radical insurgent movements, employing
‘terrorist tactics’ and suicide attacks in their war against the homeland regime. Since both national and international legislation largely outlaw support activities to such insurgent movements, especially recruitment and arms smuggling, this inevitably puts segments of the Muslim diaspora and host state authorities at odds.
One example from Britain illustrates this dilemma and how it affects host country-diaspora relations. In January 2001, British media reports spoke of Islami c militant groups, using British universities and mosques as ‘hunting places’ for activists and guerrillas. One of the most prominent Islamist radicals in London, shaykh ‘Umar Bakri Muhammad, leader of the Islamist Al-Muhajiriun group, told the Daily Telegraph that:
“[w]e find young men in university campuses or mosques, invite them for a meal and discuss the situation for ongoing attacks being suffered by Muslims in Chechnya, Palestine and Kashmir […] We […] make them understand their duty to support the Jihad struggle verbally, financially and, if they can, physically in order to liberate their homeland.”44
According to al-Bakri, every year between 1,800 and 2,000 such recruits go abroad for military training, either for national service in Pakistan or to private camps in South Africa, Nigeria or Afghanistan where they learn to use weapons and explosives. Several reported episodes of British youth participating in hostage taking and suicide attacks in countries like Yemen and the Indian-controlled Kashmir seem to confirm that Bakri’s statements were not entirely fictitious.45
44 Cited in H S Rao, “Jehadis recruited in British universities, mosques,” The Observer of Business & Politics 4 January 2001.
45 In late December 2000 a 24-year old British Muslim Muhammad Bilal, who grew up in Birmingham, was identified as the suicide car-bomber who killed nine people outside army headquarters in Srinagar in Kashmir on behalf of the Islamist separatist group of Jaysh Muhammad. This group and the militant Pakistani Lashkar-e- Tayaba group are believed to have become “significant recruiters and fundraisers from among the Pakistani and Kashmiri community in Britain.” See H S Rao, “Jehadis recruited in British universities, mosques,” The Observer of Business & Politics 4 January 2001.
During the 1990s, the British government has come under increasingly tougher pressure from a host of countries, ranging from India, Turkey, Algeria, Tunisia, Israel, Egypt, France, Russia and the United States for not reigning in and controlling the extensive support activities of
‘terrorist’ and insurgent organisations in the UK. There was a widespread perception among some antiterrorism officials, that Britain had become “a centre for the funding and recruitment of Islamic terrorist organisations.”46 Partly in response, a new British Anti Terrorism Act 2000 was passed, which outlawed 21 organisations, (most of which also figured on the US
Department of State list over terrorist organisations), and which also allowed a freer hand in investigating and prosecuting terrorist acts related to insurgent activity overseas. The Anti Terrorism Act 2000 made it an offence for anybody to extend material or moral support to any of these groups, either from Britain or abroad. Of 21 organisations on the list, more than half were Islamist insurgent groups.
The new British Anti-Terrorism Act prompted fierce responses among Islamist activists in Britain. Yet the public outcry came not only from the traditional Islamist organizations, but also from more broad-based and government-friendly Muslim organisations, such as the Muslim Council of Britain (MCB) as well as from a host of non-Muslim human rights organisations.47 From the earliest days of the legislative process, a number of Muslim groups had lobbied against the Act, fearing it would be used against Muslim organisations only. Lord Nazir Ahmad, one of four Muslims, represented in the British Parliament, spoke strongly against the Bill when it was debated. He and the MCB protested against what they saw as a
“selective application” of the Terrorism Act “by a government which had neglected its responsibility to uphold human rights”.48 If Britain and other Security Council members had enforced UN resolutions on Kashmir and Palestine, the MCB argued, then wrongs would have been righted, and groups would not have been forced to adopt armed struggle. The perception that the Anti Terrorism Act largely excluded Christian and Jewish organisations supporting illegal and/or armed activities on behalf of governments and insurgents abroad further fanned the fury of the MCB representatives.49
From their rise to prominence in the early 1990s, the Islamist movements in Europe have faced repeated clampdowns on their support activities on behalf of armed insurgencies overseas. The most spectacular police operation against Islamist support networks in Europe took place in May 1998, two weeks ahead of the World Championship in soccer. In what was termed the largest ever police operation undertaken in Europe against ‘terrorists’, hundreds of police squads in Belgium, France, Germany, Italy and Switzerland simultaneously raided what was believed to be safe houses and support infrastructure for the Algerian Armed Islamic Group
46 H S Rao, “Jehadis recruited in British universities, mosques,” The Observer of Business & Politics 4 January 2001. See also Executive Intelligence Review, “Put Britain on the list of states sponsoring terrorism”, January 21, 2000.
47 Some examples, see Faisal Bodi, “UK targets Muslim groups with new ‘anti-terrorist’ legislation”Crescent International 16-31 March 2001; Ahmed Versi, “Chechen Foreign Minister condemns Blair's Russian visit,” The Muslim News 31 March 2000; and Simeon Kerr, “Islamic until proven guilty: As Britain implements sweeping anti-terror legislation, Muslims feel unfairly targeted,” Cairo Times 4 (2) 9-22 March 2000.
48 Faisal Bodi, “UK targets Muslim groups with new ‘anti-terrorist’ legislation”Crescent International 16-31 March 2001.
49 Cited in Faisal Bodi, “UK targets Muslim groups with new ‘anti-terrorist’ legislation”Crescent International 16-31 March 2001.
(GIA).50 This massive raid prompted scathing criticism among Islamist sympathisers, even though the GIA at this point was probably the single most unpopular organisation among the moderate Islamist movements due its complicity in the horrifying Algerian massacres. Many Algerian Islamists in exile had largely dismissed the GIA as nothing more than a gang of criminal murderers, completely infiltrated by the Algerian intelligence services.51 Still, faced with a massive police onslaught on an Islamist support network in Europe, Islamists retreated to the traditional defensive posture. As one article in the London-based Muslimmedia noted about the police operation,
“their joint criminal action, still unfolding, is religious in nature, directed as it is against Islamic activists and also designed to bail out the corrupt and anti-Islamic junta in Algeria - a country whose vast gas and oil resources the ‘Christian democrats’, incidentally, have no compunction plundering”.52
The police raids were described as “typical of totalitarian states and in clear violation of EU and United Nations conventions against racism, religious discrimination and violations of personal freedoms, including the freedoms of thought and belief.”53 The clash of civilization motive was also highlighted, pointing to the Italian police who in a bizarre display of religious insensitivity had code-named the raids in Italy ‘Operation Crusade’. The Islamist press was further incensed by the fact that the police operation reportedly did not uncover any
explosives. Only one firearm and large amounts of money were confiscated. This seemed to confirm their suspicion that the police had merely intended to disrupt the support activities of the Islamist activists in Europe, in a bid to prop up the military government in Algeria, and were not actually aiming at forestalling terrorist attacks during the upcoming World Cup in soccer.54 The police raid, hence, was considered a skilful exploitation of the World Cup event to bully the Islamist community into submission, get rid of unwanted aliens, and send a powerful message to future Muslim immigrants of “how unwanted Muslims are in Europe.”55 2.4 The Algerian Islamists in France in the Early 1990s
There is little doubt that the new Islamist movements that proliferated in the late 1980s and early 1990s in Europe were primarily diaspora movements. Although concerned about the struggle for an Islamic state in their home countries, they were not at all mere extensions or branches of existing Islamist movements in their home countries. The idea that the Algerian Islamist movement, represented by the umbrella movement Islamic Salvation Front (‘Front Islamique du Salut’ - FIS), founded in 1989, from the very beginning planned and
implemented a grand strategy for establishing secure bases in Europe through a mobilisation of Islamist activists among the Algerian diaspora, is probable erroneous, although numerous press
50 M S Ahmed, “EU uses World Cup to demonise Islam,” Muslimedia: 16-30 June 1998.
51 See for example Izel et al (1999); “Algerian military to blame for a year of exceptional violence,” Crescent International 16-31 January; and John Sweeney & Leonard Doyle, “Algerian Regime Responsible for Massacres:
Algeria regime ‘was behind Paris bombs’,”The Guardian Weekly 16 November 1997, p.1. 2001.
52 M S Ahmed, “EU uses World Cup to demonise Islam,” Muslimedia: 16-30 June 1998.
53 M S Ahmed, “EU uses World Cup to demonise Islam,” Muslimedia: 16-30 June 1998.
54The Times of London quoted police sources as saying that the operation “was intended to dismantle suspected support networks for Algerian Islamic guerrilla groups rather than counteract any specific terrorist bombing threat.” Cited in M S Ahmed, “EU uses World Cup to demonise Islam,” Muslimedia: 16-30 June 1998.
55 M S Ahmed, “EU uses World Cup to demonise Islam,” Muslimedia: 16-30 June 1998.
reports and a book by former police chief Charles Pellegrine, Le FIS en France: mythe ou réalité? (Paris, 1992) have lent weight to the idea that the FIS has played a major role in the Islamist movement in France.56 Writing in the mid-1990s, Gilles Kepel observed that the FIS strategy in France had undergone considerable change since the FIS’ establishment in March 1989. At first the Algerian Islamists had refused to accept emigration as a permanent fact, a position that was only gradually abandoned on the insistence of the Islamist movement in France that FIS leaders should consider “the specific situation of Islam in France.”57 FIS appears to have viewed immigrants with some distrust. Initially, FIS had not even intended to open a French branch of the party, but rather an office as a prelude to an embassy, obviously thinking that Algerians would not be able to live under a non-Islamic regime in ‘a reviled and sinful country’. The support network, which nevertheless materialised, only became more important after the crackdown against FIS in Algeria in June 1991 and especially after February 1992. When FIS won local elections in Algeria in 1990, they established their own organisation in France with a view to building support and collecting funds for activities in Algeria. This organisation was labelled The Algerian Brotherhood in France (Fraternité Algérienne en France, FAF), founded in February 1991.58 Between February and August 1992, when the FIS was dissolved by the Algerian authorities, and its leaders rounded up, Islamist activists from the radical salafist faction of FIS (which was close to the GIA) also became active in France, setting up several support networks.59
The most noteworthy FAF activity in France was its media outlet, a weekly news bulletin mainly devoted to events in Algeria, often labelled ‘news of the uprising’ or ‘news of the jihad’. The style of the newsletter had some similarities to the GIA communiqués (see below chapter 4.5), which became another major media outlet, at least for the radical wing of the Islamist movement. In FAF’s newsletters, the Algerian military regime and its leaders were depicted as bloodthirsty isolated dictators and the mujahidin, the Islamist insurgents, were portrayed as freedom fighters, “in the upbeat style of a ‘war news’ chronicle”.60 Especially when the civil war became thoroughly brutalised in 1993, and the FAF newsletters bega n to justify ‘armed operations’ and ‘executions’ of civilians, intellectuals, journalists and
foreigners, a chasm was created between the FIS and French intellectuals. It contributed to the first wave of frictions between the Islamist movement and the French authorities.
Denouncement of French support of the Algerian regime had been rare until January 1993 when the French Foreign Minister Roland Jacques visited Algiers. However, until then France was still seen as an important land of refuge. Eventually, in 1993 all FAF news bulletins were banned because of their depiction of the Algerian civil war. Consequently, newsletters and communiqués could only be distributed covertly. The turn towards secrecy obviously favoured the radical factions of the FIS and increasingly the GIA, who had never believed in an open dialogue and a democratic negotiated settlement, but favoured the option of military struggle alone.
56 Kepel (1997), p.211.
57 Kepel (1997), p.212.
58 Kepel (1997), p.212.
59 Two of them were Qamar al-Din Kharban and Boujemaa Bounoua, two veterans of the Afghanistan war and active organisers of the armed underground in Algeria. Both represented the radical salafist tendency within FIS and were subsequently expelled to Pakistan as part of the crackdown on Algerian Islamist support network in France.
60 Kepel 1997, p.214.
It appears that FIS leaders in exile may have been wary that the radicalism emanating from the news bulletin would damage the Islamist cause. At the very least, the distribution of the FAF newsletter Le Critère was banned at the premises of the Khalid Ibn Walid mosque (in Paris) where Shaykh Sahrawi (one of FIS’ founders) was the imam.61 FAF’s problem with the police authorities worsened in November 1993 when several dozens of its leaders and supporters were arrested. Most of them were released without charges, while some were placed under house arrest, and some of them exiled to Burkina Faso. The police operation was carried out after the capture of a French consular agent in Algiers by the GIA. The aim of the police operation seems to have been to destabilize the FIS’s support network and to set strict limits to their activities. In FIS’ place, however, the more radical GIA group moved in and established itself as the dominant Algerian insurgent group from 1994 onwards.
The French scholar Gilles Kepel observed in a study written before 1995 that the FAF had introduced a new dimension in the Islamist movement in France. The FAF had gained a strong foothold in various local associations of ‘New Muslim Youth’. However, unlike previous Islamist movements, the FAF remained concerned first and foremost with the Algerian jihad, and it passed on to French-Maghrebi youth a far more radical and uncompromising ideology and worldview than the rest of the Islamist movement had embraced in the early 1990s. By its uncritical extolment of the jihad in Algeria, the virtuous mujahidin in eternal battle with Evil
— represented by the Algerian regime, secularism and France — the FAF contributed to a new radicalism in the Islamist movement in France that easily exacerbated the separatist response in the Muslim community in France.62 Undoubtedly, the FAF had paved the ground for the future mobilization of radical Islamist youth for insurgency support activities as well as armed operations on the European mainland. In this light, the rise of the GIA and its support networks in Europe must be understood. The GIA introduced a far more aggressive insurgency support strategy than the more politically oriented FIS, combining the entire spectrum of illegal support activities, with an explicit willingness to export the violent conflict to Europe.
2.5 The Origin and Development of the Armed Isla mic Group (GIA) in Algeria The origins and history of the Armed Islamic Group (or Groupe Islamique Armée, GIA) is somewhat obscure, but according to its spokesmen, it was founded in 1989 and carried out its first armed operation in 1991.63 The group traced its origin to the so-called Bouyali Group (1982-1987), which was the first Islamist armed underground organisation in Algeria after independence. Bouyali advocated the idea that “armed struggle was the only way of bringing about an Islamic state.”64
In an interview with a leading Arab journal Al-Wasat in early 1994, the GIA’s Head of the Political and Jurisdictional Committee traced the movement’s combat preparations back to
61 Kepel 1997, p.263, note 19.
62 Kepel (1997), p.216.
63 “In the first press meeting since its foundation two years ago: The Armed Islamic Group in Algeria reveals to
‘al-Wasat’ its plans and goals (in Arabic),” al-Wasat 30 January 1994.
64 Mustafa Bouyali became the emir of the MIA despite his superficial knowledge of Islamic teaching. Between 1982 until he was ambushed and killed in 1987, Bouyali became something of a legend, dodging the police and carrying out daring operations. Kepel (1997), p.165.
1989. The end of the Afghan war where many GIA guerrillas had fought, and the release from prison of Bouyali’s main comrade-in-arms al-Miliyani facilitated the formation of the
movement. The GIA spokesman described the GIA’s early history as follows:
“Contacts were made between people who saw holy struggle (jihad) as a legal-religious duty imposed on every Muslim (fard ‘ayn), when God’s law is not implemented, when the land of Muslims have been usurped, and when the women and families of Muslims are being disgraced. Many youth joined shaykh al-Miliyani. They set up cells in
villages and towns, and played a large part in the launching of the armed holy struggle.
In addition, young holy fighters (mujahidin) who fought in Afghanistan, joined the group. Out of these groups, the GIA was formed, and a communiqué of unity (bayan al-wahdah) was issued in which it explained some main points about the group’s work.
After two years, on the 18 November 1991, the GIA launched its first operation.65 The foundation of the Islamic Salvation Front (FIS) in 1989, and the issue of parliamentary elections and FIS’s participation in them divided the Islamist movement in Algeria. This caused some of the more militant activists, many of them former members of the Bouyali group or formed Mujahidin of the Afghan war, to refer to FIS party leaders as ungodly.66 From among these opponents of the politically-oriented FIS, the militant GIA rose to the fore, who differed from the FIS on the twin issues of “non-acceptance of elections and democracy, and rejection of the idea of a national reconciliation with the current regime in Algeria.”67 The GIA also differed from the FIS by the former’s willingness to target a far wider variety of targets, including civilians and foreigners, residing in Algeria. For this reason, the GIA gained a
reputation as a notorious and ruthless terrorist group. Despite GIA’s terrorism, the organisation nevertheless emerged as the leading insurgent organisation by mid-1994, embracing most Islamist insurgent groups in Algeria, apart from FIS’ armed wing, the Armée Islamique du Salut (AIS).
3 INSURGENTS AND SANCTUARIES: A FRAMEWORK
Before we look more closely at the sanctuary strategies of the Algerian Islamist insurgents, we will provide a theoretical framework for the study of insurgents and sanctuaries.
Sanctuaries have been defined as “a secure base within which an insurgent group is able to organise the politico-military infrastructure needed to support its activities”68. This is an ideal type, and few countries are willing to allow a guerrilla state to develop in its midst. The character of sanctuary will vary, depending on the strength of the host country’s state institutions, its territorial control and ideological sympathy with the rebel cause. At a
65 “In the first press meeting since its foundation two years ago: The Armed Islamic Group in Algeria reveals to
‘al-Wasat’ its plans and goals (in Arabic),” al-Wasat 30 January 1994.
66 Kepel (1997), p.171.
67 “The Armed Islamic Group in Algeria: We do not follow the FIS, we differ with it (in Arabic)” al-Hayat 11 November 1993
68 Brynen (1990), Chapter 1, p.2. This section draws heavily upon the theoretical framework in chapter 1 in Brynen’s book.
